The goal of medical education #meded

I started medical school in 1971 (yes 46 years ago).  Hated the first two years, but loved the 3rd and 4th years and loved my residency. My first month as a ward attending in Internal Medicine was January 1980.  I probably have averaged over 100 days of teaching attending for the past 37 years. What do our learners need?  They need (and almost always want) to become excellent physicians.  They want us to help them grow as clinicians. Internal medicine is a very intellectually challenging specialty.  We cover multiple organ dysfunctions.  We learn more each year about how to best diagnosis and treat patients. Our learners need help to progress, yet too often we see attending physicians focus on the learners’ deficiencies rather than on a strategy for helping them grow. I believe our job is to diagnosis their level of understanding and help them advance.  We should work on multiple dimensions: bedside manner, breaking bad news, encouraging behavior change, taking a good history, doing an accurate physical examination, interpreting laboratory tests, evaluating imaging studies and putting the story together to make correct diagnoses.  Then we need to help them make good therapeutic decisions. We cannot expect our 3rd year students to naturally adapt to all these issues.  We must help them build a foundation for continuing growth.  Similarly, our interns need encouragement to work on these dimensions.  Most 3rd year residents are very good, and we have to work har...
Source: DB's Medical Rants - Category: Internal Medicine Authors: Tags: Medical Rants Source Type: blogs